Bill's Blog

Korcula

Korcula is pronounced "KOR-choo-la." Kocula is both the name of a town and the island it is on. It has a very sleepy existence except for a good number of tourist that come every summer. The town has a beautiful old city that takes less than 35 minutes to circle on foot. We came to the town by bus from Dubrovnik last Friday. We were greeted by Marina who had a very small apartment for rent. She showed us the flat and negotiated a price for first three days and later another three days. The total cost for the six days was about $210 dollars. Marina and her husband Joseph manage the Hostel Korcula Caenazzo. They are very kind and likable.

We started by exploring the old city. We have been to concerts for the Korcula Baroque Festival. The first one was on Saturday. It was the Baroque Opera "Dido and Aeneas" by Henry Purcell and sung in English. The outdoor concert was interrupted for a few minutes twice as light rain came down. Still it was a very nice concert and you can hear a few minutes of it at this link.

On Sunday we walked to the nearby village of Lumbarda. It is about 5 kilometers from Korcula. We are getting use to the walking, but we were glad to accept a lift from a passing driver when we were about half way to the town. Our first stop was the Bire winery. Bire and the other local wineries are the only producers of the fine white variety called "grk". Bire is the only winery that is closed on Sunday. Luckily the owner's 18 year-old son, Joseph, let us in to taste the very good wine. We left with a bottle to drink later. From Bire we walked to the harbor, and around the beaches and then to another winery to taste a bit more of the grk wine. After a couple of hours we started walking back to Korcula. Since we were lucky to be offered a ride part way to Lumbarda, we decided to try hitch-hiking back to Korcula. The success was not immediate, but we eventually got a lift back. We were very tired upon our return. Thanks to our activity bands, we know that we walked more than five miles on Sunday.

I want to mention two things here. The beaches are not sandy, rather they have small smooth stones that are not uncomfortable to walk on. The beaches are numberous and quite small. The draw here is the water. I have never before seen such CRYSTAL clear water in a salt water sea. Everytime I look into the water, I feel awed. Stepping into it, I discovered that it as warm as a Minnesota lake in the summer.

Second, I want to mention that I first hitch-hiked at the age of seven, going two miles to the Oxboro center. As I grew older, it became one of my main forms of transportation. I hitched all over the USA and Europe back in the 1960's. But I finally got a car in the 1970's and did little or no hitching since then. But the lastest round of hitching means that I have been at it more than 60 years. There are so few hitch-hikers today. I wish there were more. There should be, after all they call it a sharing economy.

On Monday, I wanted to see two other smaller villages along the north coast of island. We walked a mile out of the town along the road leading to Kneza and Recisce, some 15 kilometers to the west. We could never hike that far, so we began hitch-hiking and we soon had a lift to Recisce. We waded in the sea and soaked up the atmosphere of this little village. We had a meal of fried fish with vegtables and beer. We began walking back to Kneza, a short cut up hill and it took about 40 minutes to hike there. Along the way we got a call from Birgitta. We have been using Viber to talk to her. It is a really fine VOIP app that lets you talk to friends and family on the data network, which we get free as part of our t-mobile phone plan. Anyway, we were soon in the village and decided to try hitching back to Korcula. After a half-hour or so, a very nice French couple picked us up and brought us to Korcula. We had a drink with them, sharing stories of our lives and our children. It was very nice. On Monday we only walked 4-1/2 miles.

We had a very quite day yesterday, Tuesday. We washed our clothes. Did some shopping. Betty fried chicken for dinner. In the evening we went to a really amazing concert. The Royal Wind Music performed a concert of Baroque recorder music. There were 13 muscians playing dozens of recorders of different sizes from less than 12 inches long to 8 feet tall. I have never heard such a group before. You can hear their first piece at this link.

I embeded another youTube video on this page. On Saturday we heard two local folk musician playing at a wedding reception. Later I saw them singing at the city gate. Ante Petkovic plays the accordion and Drazen Burazer is playing guitar. The song was interrupted for a bit as Drazen sold a CD. During the interruption, an unknown tourist joined Ante in singing the Croatian folk song.

We leave early in the morning of a ferry to Split, Croatia.

View of Korcula's Old City

Posted by bill at September 14, 2016 10:31 AM